Caritas volunteers unloading material aid from a truck have been assaulted several times by Mafia gangs.
Italian Missionaryh Mario Baglio said: "They were armed with knives and
wanted to steal everything. The local
Mafia demands a commission. I don't give it to them, and I just continue
working. The workers are gentlemen, and what we need here are cowboys. We'll see how it ends."
Father Baglio is in charge of the Scutari Caritas, where the priests have
to defend, on their own, between 10 and 15 truckloads of aid which arrive
every day. The priest denied a report in an Italian newspaper that a load
of arms was sent to Caritas in Scutari. He said he hoped the police would
come to guard them and defend them from the robberies.
"The fact is, no one comes here because it is a dangerous zone. From 4 p.m.
onwards, no one uses the road because the armed gangs come down from the
hills to rob the passing cars," he said.